Supporters of the far-right Golden Dawn party at an election rally ahead of Sunday’s election.
Photograph: Chrissa Giannakoudi/Demotix/Corbis

Golden Dawn, one of Europe’s most violent far-right parties, has emerged as one of the biggest winners of Sunday’s general election in Greece, consolidating its presence in parliament and power on the streets.

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The neo-fascist group came in third with 7% of the vote, behind the triumphant leftwing Syriza and conservative New Democracy. The result was met with abhorrence and dismay. In April most of its leaders were put on trial on charges of running a criminal organisation masquerading as a political force. The party – which has denied the charges – stands accused of murder, armed attacks, money laundering and trafficking.

“Golden Dawn is a movement of power, it is not a protest movement any more,” the party’s Swastika- tattooed spokesman, Ilias Kasidiaris, told Star TV as it became clear that the extremists had retained their position as the country’s third biggest political force. “Golden Dawn is the only party seeing an increase in its percentage. In October when Greeks begin to experience the consequences of the memorandum and illegal immigration you will see our support increase radically,” said the former marine, berating the country’s mainstream media for boycotting the party.

With 18 MPs in the 300-seat house, around 500,000 Greeks cast ballots in favour of Golden Dawn. The organisation performed especially well in Attica, the greater Athens region and the Aegean islands of Lesbos and Kos where voter support doubled. Both islands have been overwhelmed in recent months by thousands of refugees and migrants fleeing conflict and poverty.

Golden Dawn is not just a symptom of the crisis but is here to stay

Dimitris Keridis, professor of international political science

Golden Dawn’s anti-immigrant stance at a time of mounting fears over Greece’s frontline role in Europe’s biggest humanitarian crisis in recent history, almost certainly helped. The party, portraying itself as the “only nationalist choice” played heavily on fears that Greeks could soon become a minority in their own country. But, so too, did its shrill opposition to the internationally sponsored bailout accords, or memoranda, that the extremists have said amount to “ethnocide” or death of the nation. Polls showed that 16.6% of those who voted for Golden Dawn were victims of record levels of unemployment – the most grievous side-effect of massive budget cuts and lay-offs enforced as the price of being bailed out to the tune of €326bn by creditors from the EU and International Monetary Fund (IMF).

“In terms of absolute numbers Golden Dawn was the only party to hold its ground,” said Aristides Hatzis, political commentator and Athens University professor. “It was not at all affected by the very high rate of [electoral] abstention. Its performance is a danger and disgrace for our democracy.”

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The party won 6.8% of the vote in the election in January despite most of its leadership being behind bars. MPs, including Nikos Michaloliakos, the group’s founder, and Kasidiaris, his anointed dauphin, were released this year after serving the pre-trial maximum of 18 months in prison.

Analysts had predicted a dip in Golden Dawn’s popularity after Michaloliakos admitted to “political responsibility” for the brutal murder of an anti-fascist Greek rap singer in September 2013. The diminutive leader, an admirer of Hitler, has denied neo-Nazi links, but fascist paraphernalia were discovered in his Athens home upon his arrest. Golden Dawn’s emblem resembles a swastika.

With the ultra-nationalists using the refugee crisis and economic despair of Greeks to gain ground, political scientists said Sunday’s election was further proof that the Golden Dawn phenomenon had assumed particularly worrying dimensions. All agreed that the virulent anti-immigrant, antisemitic, anti-EU party had spread its tentacles deep into Greek society. “It tells us that Golden Dawn is not just a symptom of the crisis but is here to stay,” said Dimitris Keridis, professor of international political science at Athens’ Panteion University. “And it shows that the Greek disease is not superficial, it’s much deeper than many think.”

Before the outbreak of Greece’s great debt crisis, the far-rightists were a fringe party on the political scene gaining less than 0.5% of the vote.